Bharti Airtel bags most new rural subscribers, India adds 3.5 million

Rural India added 3.8 mn subscribers, of which 1.66 mn joined Bharti Airtel, making the Indian bellwether the largest rural player again.

MUMBAI: India added net 3.5 million GSM subscribers in April largely driven by increase in rural areas, according to two statements released by the Cellular Operators Association of India on Friday.

The association said rural India added 3.8 million subscribers, of which 1.66 million joined Bharti Airtel, making the Indian bellwether the largest rural player again. However, on an all-India basis, Bharti added merely 601,252 subscribers in April, and the GSM industry association said the Sunil Mittal-promoted telco had lost around a million customers in urban areas.

Vodafone had pipped Bharti Airtel as the largest rural operator last month, but in April it had 83.8 million rural subscribers compared with 83.4 million of Vodafone.

In March Vodafone, which had tweaked its distribution model to boost sales in the villages, had 82.24 million, a shade above Bharti Airtel at 82.16 million.

For a few operators like Aircel and Tata Teleservices subscriber figures fell because customers stopped using their second mobile connection. Typically in rural areas many users take two connections to avail of discount plans offered by newer operators.

Subscribers on the network have long been a yardstick for growth and profitability of telecom operators. But in recent months the focus has shifted to revenue figures as a higher number of subscriber additions may also result in added costs for the operator due to initial plans and processing. Given the high churn and dual phone connection phenomenon in India some of these customers leave the operator's network before they start making a profitable contribution to revenue.

In terms of overall subscribers however, Bharti continues to be the leader with 188 million users, Vodafone 153 million and Idea Cellular 122 million.

In the first couple of months of 2013 several operators pared low-revenue customers to focus on more loyal ones.

Rural subscriber addition is a sign of revival of investment in those areas from operators.